New York, NY (PRWEB) August 14, 2014

Film Movement, the distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films, announces today that ILO ILO, the universally acclaimed debut film from Anthony Chen, will be available to own on DVD and at all digital providers on September 16, 2014.

The film, winner of the Camera d’Or for best first film at the Cannes Film Festival, follows the middle-class Lim family as they navigate economic and familial struggles in 1997 Singapore. The family’s live-in maid Teresa, a Filipino immigrant, is an outsider in both the family and Singapore itself, seeking to manage the antics of rambunctious young Jiale and find solid footing in her new community. The two eventually form a unique bond, but just as Teresa becomes an unspoken part of the family, the financial crisis hits home, challenging the relationships among all of them.

One of the best-reviewed independent films of 2014, ILO ILO marks an impressive debut from filmmaker Anthony Chen, who based the story his own family’s live-in maid and her contributions to his life as a child. Having lost touch, Chen and his siblings were reunited with their own Auntie Terry upon the international release of ILO ILO. Academy Award®-winning director Ang Lee (Life Of Pi, Brokeback Mountain) has said of ILO ILO, “Anthony Chen’s portrait of family life in 1997 Singapore is one of those rare films that manages to capture an entire period within one intimate slice of life. Beautifully acted and precisely observed, ILO ILO is an amazing debut, full of heart and intelligence.”

Additional praise for ILO ILO:

“This remarkably terse movie doesn’t waste a word or an image. It refuses to linger over each little crisis its characters endure. And its detachment lends a perspective that widens the film’s vision of people reacting to events beyond their control. This family and Singapore belong to a complex, tightly knit social organism in which, consciously or not, every part is sensitive to every other.”

-Stephen Holden, The New York Times (Critics’ Pick)

“Ilo Ilo” is writer-director Anthony Chen’s first film, but breathtaking intimacy in storytelling is already second nature to him. Winner of Cannes’ prestigious Camera d’Or for best debut feature, it quietly demonstrates that in the right hands even the familiar stuff of everyday life can move us deeply.…It is difficult to overstate how real and touching all this feels and how much it ends up affecting us.”

-Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

“Humorously enchanting…[with] a profoundly moving quality! …Through his superbly developed characters and nuanced storytelling, Chen successfully captures both the cultural pluralism of the Singaporean society and the preoccupations and wonders (Walkmans and Tamagotchis included), of a time which now seems strangely distant.” –Indiewire

Available to own on DVD on September 16th at FilmMovement.com, Amazon.com and other retailers following a successful nationwide theatrical release, ILO ILO will also be available to own digitally via iTunes and Amazon Instant. The DVD also includes a bonus short film, BLIK, the animated story of a boy who falls in love with the older girl next door, and a bonus Making Of featurette that takes viewers behind the scenes on production of ILO ILO.

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ILO ILO (2013, 99 min) Written and Directed by Anthony Chen. Starring Yeo Yann Yann, Chen Tianwen, Angeli Bayani, Koh Jia Ler. Cinematography: Benoit Soler. Editors: Hoping Chen, Joanne Cheong. Producers: Anthony Chen, Ang Hwee Sim, Wahyuni A. Hadi. Singapore. Mandarin, Tagalog & English. Unrated. A Film Movement Release. Complete press kit, trailer, stills and synopsis available here

About Film Movement:

Launched in 2003, Film Movement is a full-service North American distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films, based in New York City. Film Movement has released more than 250 feature films and shorts from 50 countries on six continents, including top prize winners from Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin, Tribeca and other prestigious festivals. Film Movement releases its films through numerous distribution channels, including thousands of art-house cinemas, universities and libraries; home video; television outlets; Cable Video on Demand (including its very own branded cable VOD platform—Film Festival on Demand—available in over 40 million US homes); In-flight Entertainment and broadband outlets. In late 2013, Film Movement launched RAM Releasing, a genre label to distribute thriller, suspense and noir films across all platforms. For more information, please visit http://www.filmmovement.com.

CONTACT: Lisa Trifone | lisa(at)filmmovement(dot)com | 212.941.7744 x209






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